Thinking. Loving. Doing. {Book Review}

When I saw the title of this book, I was intrigued. With John Piper as one of the general editors and contributions by Francis Chan and RC Sproul, I figured it had to be good. Unfortunately, it did really seem to live up to the hype. I probably underlined the most in the Rick Warren chapter, and I’m not a huge Rick Warren fan.

I love the premise of the book. We’re called to think critically about things, love others, and do something about the words we’re reading in Scripture. However, I found the content to be a bit uninspiring. There were a few underline-worthy lines, so I’ll share those with you by chapter.

The Battle for Your Mind by Rick Warren

We only believe the parts the Bible that we actually do. You may say, I believe the witnessing. Do you do it? No? You don’t really believe in. You say, “I believe in family devotions.” Do you do it? No? Then you don’t really believe in it. We only do the things we actually believe in. Our problem is that we know far more than we need to and we teach people too much. We might be teaching people so much that they aren’t able to apply it.

We preachers can do a lot of ought-to preaching without giving our people the how-to’s.

Writing makes a man more precise.

What we need today are people creating new innovations in a new society to reach new generations. The message must never change, but the methods have to change with every generation.

The Way the World Thinks: R. Albert Mohler Jr.

We tend to associate with people who think as we do because nothing reinforces the way we think as beign with people who think like us.

Thinking for the Sake of Global Faithfulness by Thabiti Anyabwile

Even if religion makes no sense to you, you need to make sense of religion to make sense of the world (quote by Stephen Prothero).

Think Hard, Stay Humble by Francis Chan

I asked my friend how he would prepare [to preach]. He told me how he would look at the crowd and pray, “God you know how I love these people. Give me the right words to bring them closer to you.”

When my heart is right, preaching becomes a wonderful experience rather than a burdensome one.

As you are learning, are you still loving? As you acquire more knowledge, are you still burdened like you once were?

Love produces this kind of constant thinking about others. Which is essentially what humility is.

Hope this provided some inspiration! Have YOU read any good books lately?